Homemade wine

Having been involved in wine as an amateur since the early 1980s and professionally shortly thereafter, I have had a lot of experience tasting everything, from priceless 1st growth Bordeaux to everyday drinking wine. Though I have always specialised in selling wines of exceptional, in one way or another, pedigree, I have tried and drank lots of middling or indifferent stuff, with one horror always lurking at the back of my mind - a friend's home-made wine.

Uninformed people like to kid themselves that somehow a little person on their own with no facilities and little real knowledge can make a better, a more honest wine, than the dastardly commercial producers, out for what they can get with little regard for purity and real quality. It is a wonderful, innocent idea that seems rational until you know a bit more about it, when if you have any sense you realise that this is all a bullock would deposit not long after a good meal - the average Joe or Josephine has no suitable equipment, little knowledge and, quite frankly, limited understanding of what makes a good wine. Not to labour a point, most homemade wine is mediocre, sometimes embarrassing and, more often than not, undrinkable by anyone with a trained palate.

You, my regular reader, remember clearly that back in May I took a ship and visited old friends on the beautiful island of Kos, friends that I had known since before my teens and that I had lost touch with until relatively recently, life being what it is. After spending a few days on the island, encountering the same warmth that had bound us as children from entirely different backgrounds all those years ago, I had to leave and return to the Greek mainland. One of my kind friends insisted he give me some of his family's homemade olive oil and a bottle of their family wine, both of which I accepted with outward pleasure and inner apprehension; the wine especially worried me.

Over the last few months the olive oil has been in regular use in my sister's household, where I am thankfully a guest, enhancing many a salad but also, despite my friend warning against it - don't waste this in cooking, it's too good - I used it in a handful of yummy dishes. The wine posed more of a problem - what if it was awful? - and I was more circumspect in sharing it, not wanting to embarrass neither my friend in Kos nor the sharer, so I kept it in my wardrobe.

Well, today became the moment of truth and, as my sister went out for the evening, I indulged in some basic cooking and a glass or three of wine, choosing my friend's wine from Kos as the victim. And - and I can hardly credit this myself - I was bowled over, for this was a terrific red wine, serious and concentrated in nose and palate, intense strawberries with a touch of brandy dominating everything. Rich and pleasing, it was the exact opposite of what I had feared and exactly what my friend had loosely promised me... Oh ye of little faith!

With all my preconceptions shattered, my simple meal tonight fittingly involved some of his olive oil as well, giving me lots of satisfaction in more ways than one and proving to me how stupid prejudice is - yes, most homemade wine is shite, but some can be very good indeed. As a little egomaniac I may not enjoy being taught lessons but, on the other hand, I do so enjoy learning! The pleasure from this unexpected surprise was such - and I was fully prepared to have to flush the wine down the sink, if I'm honest - that I polished off the whole bottle and it left me wanting more.

I do not know when my next time in Kos will be, though I hope it may be soon as I yearn to spend more time with my lovely friends there, but it will have to include a bit more of this lovely wine, made with love and surprising skill and offered with affection for a friendship that, incredible as it may seem, has transcended the years - I feel so amazingly blessed.

Beauty and Beastly behaviour

Greece is my country of birth and, despite spending a large chunk of my adult life elsewhere (mainly in London) - you, my loyal reader, well know that I consider myself a passionate Londoner - I am currently due to circumstances beyond my control spending most of my time enjoying the Greek summer and autumn.

Recently my wonderful friends T. and T.  K-S came from Finland to spend a week visiting a country that they had never seen before, giving me the opportunity to show them some of the sights of this, most touristy of countries. My kind nephew allowed me to us his little car and off we went, hurtling around the Greek countryside, up mountains and down dales, for there is a lot to see in terms of ancient sites, but also lots and lots of countryside unknown to most. And let me tell you - and some of these roads and places were new to me too - that a lot of it is magnificent, not at all like the tourist pamphlets showing arid Aegean islands and lots of beaches.

Sure, Greece has many islands, not all of them arid and most of them worth visiting both for natural beauty and in pursuit of a good time. Most everyone knows this, as lots of publicity has been generated internationally about the Greek Sun, the Greek Sea, the Greek Beaches. Hardly anyone outside Greece, however, and not many people within either, know all the fabulous mountains, forests and attractive towns and villages that abound. There are many unspoilt or not over-spoilt places to visit, modernised with sensitivity, alive with locals and not just tourist traps, waiting to welcome the lucky traveller heading their way. A new wave of good quality hotels has also sprung up, often unfortunately nicknamed 'boutique hotels' that offer good quality hospitality and prices that reflect this, but not unduly.

Partly by luck and partly by judgement we stayed in a nice hotel fitting that description nestling on the bottom of Dimitsana, a lovely large unspoilt village in Arcadia, in the heart of the Peloponnese. Our hotel was perched above a ravine with a swirling river (not visible but audible from the hotel) and offered dramatic views, clean mountain air (we were at 1000 metres altitude approx.), comfortable rooms and was close to a network of amazing, if confusing, mountain roads. These roads, sometime through thick forest, others hanging on the sides of the mountains, were a driver's dream - empty, curving and largely in ok condition for fast driving. We had a great time driving hither and thither.

Alas in the middle of nowhere, often in pristine countryside we, more than once, were unfortunate enough to encounter rubble and rubbish discarded without a thought for the environment. As some of the stuff dumped was clearly household stuff or builder's rubble it had to have come from local people or businesses. How can individuals live in the midst of exquisite beauty and think nothing of dumping their rubbish wherever it suits them?

Of course the excuses are many, and some of them may even be valid to a point, but it upsets me no end to witness this carelessness and cavalier attitude with the environment, particularly as large swathes of Greece have been ruined beyond redemption by humankind and progress. Is it not enough that we have brutalised our seafronts in the name of enjoyment and holidays, do we really need to destroy our mountaintops as well? Yet most Greeks can be heard proclaiming that they live in 'the most beautiful country in the world!' but there seems little interest in preserving and taking care of this beauty.

Careless, selfish, stupid, destructive behaviour is not a Greek prerogative, of course, and can be found all over this world of ours. I resent it, will never accept it as somehow inevitable and will try to oppose it wherever and whenever I encounter it and am able to. Perhaps you, dear reader, would care to help?

Greta Thunberg, my appreciation

A 16 year old Swedish girl has been upsetting the world recently, turning things upside down wherever she goes, shaking the status quo and generating lots of publicity. She is called Greta Thunberg, has Asperger's syndrome, and has been making a nuisance of herself on the international stage, even at the United Nations... is she a pest, a hero or a misguided individual manipulated by the adults in her life for their own ends?

Greta has generated immense amounts of good publicity for the problem of global warming, for the case the scientists have been diligently researching, proving and promoting for the last few years; she has invented nothing, nor does she lay claim to anything of the sort. She is not a scientist and probably, as a 16-year old, is not deeply scientific, but she appears reasonably knowledgable. What she most certainly is is passionate - what her critics like to call disturbed - about what is happening to the environment of our planet and, unlike most children her age, she is actually doing something tangible about it in her own, perhaps naive, way. She is, after all, still a child - out of the mouths of babes - and this is obvious if only you care to look without your prejudice getting in the way, though her detractors find conspiracies, with concealed adults everywhere supposedly manipulating her and controlling everything. This all appears to be untrue, with most conspiracy theories debunked by those in the know (yes, she appears to write all her speeches by herself!), which doesn't seem to stop the emergence of new ones all the time - even a fake tie-up with good old George Soros has been attempted!

What I find remarkable in this little girl is her courage and willingness to stand up to the world and its leaders, grown-ups all, perhaps made easier by her Asperger's (her, as she says, superpower). A friend of mine said the other day that there was nothing courageous in what Greta is doing, that she is put up to it, that she is coaxed but I beg to differ - even if it were so,  for a child, however passionate, to stand up (or in Greta's case sit down) and address world leaders in a foreign country takes great commitment and, yes, bravery! Remember school things where we had to get up and read things in front of everyone and how hard that was, anybody?

Greta is criticised for somehow not having done anything special herself other than not to go to school on Fridays, but in so doing the critics are missing the point entirely: this is not about Greta Thunberg or anything she has achieved, and she has laid claim to nothing for herself. Where is she at fault for promoting a message we need to hear, the whole world needs to hear? She is fighting to put across that message only, that our environment is in peril, that we are running out of time and that we should listen to the science; in this she is, quite literally, an angel, as the real meaning of the word in its original greek does not involved winged creatures, but rather simply means messenger.

Some dispute he's style, others her lack of knowledge or experience, more yet like to pretend she is part of some conspiracy - for what, pray? - with others pulling the strings. As far as I can see she is just a passionate young girl - yes inexperienced, yes awkward, yes imperfect - but in focussing on that we are blinding ourselves to this angel's message: do something about our world now, for tomorrow may be too late. It is a simple enough message which has nothing whatsoever to do with the person of Greta, so if you disagree please talk convincingly about that and not about her clothing, her presentation of her manner of speaking.

And do you know what? Should we fail to act soon, I don't think that the young should ever forgive us!

Two in a row

It is highly unusual, not only for me but for most of us, to have splendid wine on two consecutive evenings. Our bodies - especially ageing ones like mine - demand a break, fine wine is not easily available and the whole shebang can be costly if it is pursued at a commercial establishment, such as a restaurant or wine bar. As with everything in life, though, luck plays a part and, after the splendid dinner on Tuesday night recounted in my previous post, I had a phone call from my good friend AM inviting me for a bite to eat on Wednesday evening, an opportunity for a catch-up chat, lubricated by a bottle of something or other... Music to my ears!

At his place the simple food is always prepared well and there are, almost always, nice fried potatoes, against which resistance on my part is futile. My friend is far more restrained and always has been, so he doesn't touch the fries, but for me the pleasure is just too much, weak little man that I am. He also likes to share one or two of his good bottles - most people cannot truly appreciate grand wines other than on a label basis - and he finds in me, his erstwhile supplier and always available advisor, a good companion in enjoyment.

So we started our evening with a delightfully light Riesling from the Pfalz area of Germany (Reichsrat von Buhl Reiterpfad Hofstuck Riesling 2015), with its balance of freshness and hints of richness, a wine of sweet but not cloying temperament in the background full of white peaches and lychees, without any hint of the taut minerality and rich petrol hues found in its Alsace cousins. This is an excellent aperitif wine, light and playful, which could also accompany dishes with a lighter taste, as rich food would all but eclipse its delicate body.

Our food was varied and tasty, aside from the aforementioned fries I had some salad, zucchini pie and a touch of roast chicken, all delightful; I was sorry not to have a stomach twice the size! To accompany this simple fare my host opened a bottle of 1997 Pichon Baron which did not disappoint us in any way. 1997 was a tricky year in Bordeaux, with lots of disappointing bottles but, as per usual, the Pichon Baron does well in difficult conditions - this was most evident 22 years later! This was a rich mouthful, with lots of oak on the nose and palate balanced by rich red fruit and chocolate, no signs of fading but perhaps at its best now. A very good wine from a vintage of varied quality, it made the evening extremely pleasurable. Furthermore, I was successful in decanting it perfectly, so we avoided any sediment without wasting much wine...

Added to all the above the warm friendship and interesting conversations we always share, this was a lovely evening. Any candidates for making it three in a row?

Wood Restaurant Dinner

Thanks are due to my friends who make it possible to consistently attend dinners, help in the presentation and, generally, take part in activities that involve food and drink; without their help, these activities would be beyond my reach.

Our gastronomic society organised a dinner at a new restaurant (Wood Restaurant) which appeared during the summer and which was created by a wonderful chef - and friend, but this is not a plug! - Mr. Michalis Dounetas. Michalis is a rarity among top Greek chefs in that not only is he modest and unpretentious, but he is also extremely knowledgable, hard-working and eager to learn more about his craft.

So the friends of Dionysus gathered there on a very autumnal Tuesday evening to partake of a very meaty dinner - Wood specialises in meat and ethical sourcing - accompanied by two superlative wines and an unusual (for us) Bulgarian fine aged plum alcohol. This was not a meal of complexity and prissy dishes; rather, this was earthy, strong in taste and simply but effectively presented, the quality of the ingredients and the sure hand of the kitchen the guiding lights. I must say we ate extremely well.

The first course of a home-made Bresaola (from Greek animals) was excellent in texture and the little vegetable bits  meant that it was bursting with flavours, but the accompanying wine was, if anything, even better - Vientzi 2016 Savatiano from Papayiannakos, the enterprising biodynamic producer in the ancient winemaking area of Mesogeia, near Athens. Savatiano is a long-ignored grape variety, largely because of the crime of being a basic component of retsina, but also because when grown for mass production and vilified thus it produces a flabby, clean but characterless liquid. This is not the case here, with a single vineyard wine produced from very old vines (over 50 years old) in a dry climate, and loving, careful vinification, the result being a stunning, complex, mineral yet fresh white wine that gives layer upon layer of taste, is extremely long and will age, I think, beautifully. If you can find it, drink it and you'll not regret it, this is a superb Greek wine at an extremely reasonable price.

Our second course was a small rib of beef, cooked to fall off the bone and paired with kritharaki (orzo), both soft and joyously tasty, a rather peasant dish that gave lots of satisfaction. This was followed by a small beef medallion served with a stuffed mushroom on top, a delicate sauce and some vegetables, simple and to the point, lovely textures and tastes combining for a very successful end product. These two courses were magnificently accompanied by a quirky red wine from Greece's most individual and wonderful winemaker, Economou from Crete, whom I have praised in a previous post as my loyal reader knows. This was a Liatiko 2006, light brick and red in colour but bursting with flavours, complex and beguiling, red fruit and spices, taste that goes on and on, soft yet full, utterly delicious. Drink it if you can find it, of course, but that is an unlikely event and one of the reasons why our - the Friends of Dionysus - events  are so special - you can taste things with us that are simply not available to anybody else, at any price!

The sweet was a baba steeped in the same brandy as the one served, but slightly younger, so this was an excellent match for the rather fine - much finer than any similar drink I've tried - plum brandy, which was delicate but full of taste.

Thursday evening

Little boys and girls I apologise at the beginning of this post, for this Thursday night I was fortunate enough to drink some wines that you, poor ordinary creatures, can only dream about. Indeed, the evening was so good that we rounded it off with a 1997 aged grappa from Levi that you couldn't even dream about, it was that wonderful.

Step forward YT, whom I hadn't seen for about a month, who with his usual generosity, provided the majority of bottles (another friend, LK provided one as well) for our assortment of six in total to evaluate, appreciate and enjoy. My loyal reader well knows that YT and his kind wife MT are regular providers of unforgettable evenings with good food, great wines and excellent company, even including your scribe.

Many times before I have told you that good food does not have to be elaborate, just well-sourced and well executed; last Thursday conclusively proved this to anyone caring to look carefully enough. We had a simple green salad with a dressing that complemented, not dominated, the taste of the leaves, making it an invigorating start to a meal and preparing the palate for the main course. This again was simple but beautifully done, oven-roasted beans from the north of Greece, with tomato, onions and a bread crumb crust, simple but yummy, straightforward but utterly delicious.

Wine, wine, wine is always our clarion call when we meet at YT's place, and this time was no exception, with an exceptional Savatiano VIENTZI single vineyard 2016 to start with from Papayiannakos, then three vintages of Assyrtiko from Santorini (2012-11-10), then an amazing wine from southern France (Madiran 1995 Chateau Montus) followed by an Avaton 2002 from Gerovassiliou in Northern Greece.

Savatiano is, in my opinion, an outstanding Greek grape variety that has been dismissed for too long as uninteresting, even inferior, as it is the main variety used in Retsina, the pungent, occasionally offensively pine resin scented wine that's launched a million taverna meals for tourists - and, by the way, there is such a thing as good retsina. But Savatiano is special, and in good hands it can produce subtle, multi-layered, interesting wines; the Vientzi 2016 single vineyard wine is a supreme expression from very old vines (over 50 years old), very concentrated and fine, reminding me of a top Rhone white.

Of course the Assyrtiko Santorini wines were outstanding in some ways but very different, with the significant oxidation of the 2010 dominating the freshness and minerality of the area, the 2011 was subdued but more typical and the 2012 was showing all you would expect from this special island (zingy lemony paired with mineral notes) with a bit of age as a bonus. The 2010 was clearly on the way out - still all there but oxidising - but I still found lots to enjoy in it, a sentiment not shared by everyone present.

If the quality and style of the whites was attempting to make life difficult for the Madiran they failed -they just emphasised this exceptional wine's presence, allowing it to show its richness and complexity, its ripe red fruit character undimmed by age, layered, long and immensely satisfying but perhaps better on a cold winter's day to provide sunshine. The quality of Chateau Montus, well known now throughout the wine world, gives a clear signal of what can be achieved with passion, love, local grape varieties and hard work; Montus shows clearly why individual properties in the south of France (in this case south west, Gascony) must now be taken seriously, always, forgetting the big commercial concerns. This is the real deal!

Avaton is a Gerovassiliou wine from the North of Greece from a winegrower who, in my view these days, looks for the broad appeal rather than the exceptional, with this 2002 showing soft tannins, mature red fruits  and some complexity, a good wine from an exceptional stable, rather overshadowed by the sheer exuberance of the Madiran which preceded it. I find that, from a winemaker who has produced some great wines in the past, especially in Porto Carras during his tenure there, his wines today are always technically sound, well made, even interesting, but they are rarely truly exciting.

Then to finish, oh, to finish, a grappa from those sorcerers of this liquid, the Levi family (alas no longer around), an aged one being even more exciting than their normal concoctions, a drink so incredibly fine that it left many of us speechless. This was gentle, complex, a whisper yet at the same time loud, obvious but hidden, a subtle heavyweight with extreme finesse, in short a masterpiece of the art of making, then ageing, proper grappa and bottling it at the perfect moment. Astoundingly good stuff and the perfect way to end not only a meal, but this post.

Drink, drink, drink (pace, Father Jack!)

My impecunious state over the last few years would - probably should - have condemned me to the state of only drinking house wine for the remainder of my days. Luckily I have good friends who appreciate my company enough to dig out fine bottles from their cellars to share with me, allowing me access to some very fine stuff indeed, what I live for, really.

At the end of a long September day, having welcomed my lovely Finnish friends to Athens and made sure that they were safely ensconced in their little holiday flat, I hot-footed it to my friend AM's place for a bite to eat but, more importantly, for a drop or two of wine. Many years ago when we were both London based I was a contributor to his cellar and, indeed, helped forge his wine preferences so that he is now able, without specific advice, to surf the world's markets and purchase stuff that is good both for keeping and for current drinking.

Of course a little bit of common sense is all that is needed to buy sensibly, once you have a decent budget and understand the basics of the way the wine market functions - my friend has all those quantities in abundance and has learnt from his mistakes. Also, he has a pocket that can weather the odd false move, a useful asset when investing in the aged wine market.

The first wine we had a crack at was a Taittinger champagne. Now this is a well-respected house with a decent non-vintage cuvee and good vintage champagne, but their real glory is their luxury Comtes de Champagne cuvee, of which we were privileged to share the 2006 vintage. This is a staggeringly good wine lacking the vulgar publicity of, say, a Dom Perignon, and all the better for it. Blanc des blancs, a chardonnay wine from grand cru rated vineyards and with class to spare, the 2006 was incredibly young and vigorous, almost gauche, clean and creamy, young and lemony, to untrained eyes a current vintage. Delicate layers of taste take turns to assail your palate with pleasure that only the finest champagne can provide, here still awkward with youth despite the thirteen years of age, subtle, complex and beguiling, with more ahead of it.

And then the big surprise, a 1975 claret, from a year that initially promised so much and spectacularly failed to delivered, with hard tannins outliving the lively fruit of youth and, in many cases, leaving graceless, dried out wines. Well, not the bottle of Leoville Las Cases that we were privileged to attack this evening which, while perhaps short of perfection in balance and refinement, was now drinking especially well. A surprisingly deep and vigorous colour with only a tiny bit of brick on the outside led to a discreet vanilla and red fruit nose and a cornucopia of red fruit on the palate, complex and clean, without a hint of the hardness that has bedevilled this vintage in the past. I was surprised, nay bowled over, by this stunning, elegant, Leoville, still youthful, still complex, which leads me back to a reevaluation of the vintage - anybody with more 1975s to taste?

Sure, we had some food with the wine, including peached salmon, salad, wild rice and a spectacularly good spinach pie that managed to be light and flavoursome - delicious in fact - at the same time, but they were there to support the wine. You are, dear reader, lucky to have found me and so learn through my experiences how wonderful the world of wine can be. Trust me, it is amazing!